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and sweetness to Tennyson; and in fifty years' time, who will read Browning? Let us return to our sheep.

Marion had chosen the place where Pippa passes singing:

"The year's at the spring,

The day's at the morn,
Morning's at seven,

The hill-side's dew pearled;

The lark's on the wing,

The snail's on the thorn,

God's in His Heaven,

All's right with the world."

Oh, strong poet of the densest tympanum, to write those third and fourth lines

"The hill-side's dew pearled!"

Was there ever such a stuttering collocation of syllables to confound the reader and utterly destroy a sweet little lyric?

Pippa was Adrienne, Marion's model. She was passing in the bright early morning, singing as she went, unconscious of her words, and dangling her grapes before her; a figure full of health, youth, and beauty; Adrienne with the least possible darkening of the eyebrows and

the hair; not an Italian face at all; sweet-lipped Adie, tall, delicate, graceful-not a silk-weaver, not Pippa, not a workwoman, not the heroine of Browning's noble dream; an English girl, in a bright clear sunshine, with strong shadows, which lay black under the vine-leaves and behind the stones, and set off her sweetness as a crystal mounted in an ebony setting; and behind the unconscious girl a face and the back of a head-the face of a man who catches the words. They strike his ear with a force the girl knows nothing of; the glamour of a devilish passion falls from him, and he sees the awful thing-too late-in its true light. In the head of the woman that looks to him you may, if you can, imagine the wonder that is in her unseen face, and the horror of the awaking.

sings her song and passes

"God's in His Heaven,

All's right with the world."

Pippa

The picture was nearly finished; the principal figure a half figure-was completed; the heads were worked up; only the flowers and accessories were as yet to be filled in.

Marion worked contentedly from half-past

She was their were the two

five to eight at her canvas. She was not unhappy, provided there was money to give her two children enough to eat: it was all she worked for now. If she dreamed of anything better, it seemed a long way off. natural protector: to her they children always, helpless, not quite to be trusted; a little perverse-at least, one of them -but always lovable, always to be treated with a fond consideration. At eight Adie appeared, and began to make the breakfast. This was the happiest time that the girls had. In the evening there was always the drop of bitterness in the cup, the discontent of comparison, the absence of their brother. In the morning they were alone, for Fred seldom rose till nine or ten, and they could talk. Presently Marion, keeping silence on the doctor's proposals, began to talk, as usual, of money matters.

"Five shillings, Adie, dear," she said, giving her that amount. "It is not a great deal for a long day's work copying, is it? But it is as much

as Mr. Burls would give me.

After all, I dare

say it is more than one deserves. Why do they always pay women so much worse than men?"

"Because they are not strong enough to knock the cheats down and beat them, as men would do," said Adie, vindictively.

She took the money, and dropped it into her purse, where Dr. Chacomb's five pounds were lying: the accusing jingle of the coins reminded her unpleasantly of her promise, and struck her soul with a note of remorse. It was as if she

had sold herself to deceive her sister.

"It is enough, at any rate," she said, "for today. You shall have some dinner when you come home, dear. Not a dinner-tea; you shall have some steak, and I will get you a pint of claret, if-if-oh, if Fred does not want it all. You want a little wine so badly, dear."

"Let Fred have two shillings, Adie, and I will do without the claret. Besides, it is ridiculous for us to talk about wine, with our fortunes at this low ebb."

"Marion, you are looking pale. Do not work so hard; things will get right somehow I am sure they will. Fred says he has always felt certain they will."

Marion shook her head. She was not hopeful this morning; perhaps because the sky had

clouded over since she left off work for breakfast.

working the talk "That is, if he The poor boy

"Fred will get a situation," Adie went on, trying to talk cheerfully, and round, somehow, to a point. gets friends to back him up. wants friends badly, if only to keep him out of the billiard-rooms. Perhaps I shall be able to get something to do; but it seems as if I can do nothing at all. I might teach French, it is true, if anybody would believe that I knew it. Marion, let us talk it together every day, for fear of my forgetting my only accomplishment. I cannot play well enough to teach music, and I know nothing else-nothing. My dear, I am horribly helpless and selfish. I let you work day after day for us, and never seem to do anything."

"Adie," Marion patted her cheek, "I do not want you to do anything."

Adie sighed.

"Marion," she whispered, laying her arm on her sister's neck, "Marion, tell me, if you saw a way-if any one told you of a way,

a way, would you

not like to escape out of all this dreadful misery

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